How to create effective conference registration forms

Attendees bring events to life. After months of planning, contacting speakers, and raising awareness, the day of a conference can be stressful. To alleviate any stress, hosts can use conference registration forms to streamline the organization, management, and success of an event.

Registration forms allow hosts to plan their events more precisely and gather necessary information for leadership conferences, academic summits, or even local gatherings.

Keep reading for practical examples of how to create impactful conference registration forms and what to include in time.

Event registration forms let organizers know how many people will attend their conference. Registration forms also help from a management perspective while allowing hosts to plan the event more effectively.

For example, if the organizers know that 200 people will attend a specific panel, they can place enough seats ahead of time. Alternatively, if the conference is a team event, the host will know how many T-shirts to order and what sizes to purchase. 

The more information you have on your attendees, the better equipped you will be to effectively manage the event. Below are some of the most important information you should request on a conference registration form:

Depending on the conference you want to host, your registration form should contain fields for all the information you need. Anything that will streamline your event should go on the registration form.

If you want to easily create online forms, be sure to explore our conference registration form template. Our online template allows you to customize your event form, and modify the fields and questions to gather the exact information you need. We also offer a survey question bank with over 20,000 questions you can use for inspiration. 

Creating conference registration forms doesn't have to be overly complex. At a minimum, you only need the attendee's contact information and when they expect to attend.

If you ask too many questions during the registration process, you may overwhelm potential guests. Long registration forms can lead to high rates of unfinished responses. Equally, if you don’t solicit enough data, you might fail to correctly plan and organize the event.

To strike a balance between too much and too little information, we’ve collected some tips for creating effective conference registration forms.

Before creating an online form for registration, clarify what information you need to collect. Depending on the conference format you plan on hosting, the exact data you’ll require will vary.

For example, a conference registration form for a leadership conference will vary from an academic conference. Create a list of the core information you will need from your attendees. Information about when people plan on arriving, which days they expect to attend on, and why they’re attending will help you organize the conference more effectively.

Equally, contact information will give you an easy method of communicating further details to your attendees. Try to create a list of must-have fields, such as contact and dates of attendance. These will become mandatory fields that everyone will fill in on your online form.

Businesses can then supplement these fields with other voluntary information. In these additional fields, you can ask for more details. Be sure to provide space for these questions, but don’t make them mandatory.

Including a mixture of mandatory and voluntary information will help those who simply want to register do so quickly. Then, those willing to spend more time and share other details are free to do so in their own time.

The event registration platform that you choose will influence the additional features that you have available to you. Your chosen platform will affect everything from the survey integrations to your capacity to collect user data.

Before creating a conference registration form, select the best platform for the job.

While some conferences are free to the public, many in business sectors have a fixed price. Instead of creating two systems, one for collecting survey data and another for billing attendees, you should endeavor to combine these functions.

Streamlining registration and payment will reduce customer confusion and decrease the amount of admin work for the conference hosts.

SurveyMonkey allows organizations to customize every element of their conference registration form. Alongside editing logos, text, questions, and design elements, hosts can also integrate various additional features.

Adding a payment page is one of the most useful integrations for event registration forms. The SurveyMonkey Stripe integration enables you to easily collect payments during the registration process. 

You can also assign prices to different survey options. For example, a person who wants to attend for a whole weekend could pay more than someone who wants to only attend on Saturday. With SurveyMonkey, you can assign prices of anywhere between $1-10,000 in many accepted currencies. 

Connecting to Stripe through SurveyMonkey also provides conference hosts with transaction analysis results. While not an exhaustive list, this feature allows you to see:

SurveyMonkey also offers the ability to use a sliding payment scale, in the case of voluntary donation events.

When searching for online registration, most new users will first look at your website. As this is where you store information about your event, users will expect to sign up on your site.

Instead of using an external platform, you can embed your conference registration form on your website. Embedding your survey on a website gives your attendees the easiest possible registration experience. Equally, they can navigate to your support tab if they need any additional help.

Online event ticketing is a huge sector, with Statista estimating a total value of $76.4 billion for 2024. Many event attendees will register for your conference on their mobile devices. To ensure they have an easy experience, make sure that your registration form is accessible on mobile.

Depending on your hosting platform, your online registration form may already be mobile-friendly. That said, checking on various devices before opening registration is always a good idea. 

Your conference registration forms should be as concise as possible. Cut out or paraphrase any lengthy questions to streamline the experience for your guests. Your questions should be short, specific, and easy to understand.

Try to only include necessary questions and have too many open-ended questions. While open questions can help you gain more information, several in a row could frustrate users. If possible, create a registration experience that takes under five minutes to finish.